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THIS MADE THE NY TIMES

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got this posting from a former guild of mine when I was doing SWG. Looks like the SWG problems made the NY times

By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: December 10, 2005

For two and a half years, Emily E. LaBeff, chairwoman of the sociology department at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex., spent 30 hours or more each week playing the online computer game Star Wars Galaxies. Not for research, but for fun.

Logging on to the game on weekends and many nights after class, Ms. LaBeff directed Athena Wavingrider, a powerful Jedi she created, through the far corners of the Star Wars universe, fighting on behalf of the Rebel Alliance against the tyranny of the Galactic Empire. Like millions of other online gamers, Ms. LaBeff, 54, discovered a camaraderie and friendship with other players that were far more important than the play itself - relationships that can be hard to replicate in "real life."

"It's replaced my television time, and I don't go to the movies anymore," she said, chuckling. "I don't keep my car as clean as I used to. But it's not because of the game itself. It's because of the people." She added, "We all had this wonderful second life together."

And now it's all gone, at least in any form that Ms. LaBeff and thousands of other Star Wars Galaxies veterans would recognize.

Last month, LucasArts and Sony's online game division, which have jointly run Star Wars Galaxies since its introduction in 2003, suddenly turned the game upside down, making the most sweeping changes ever made to a persistent online game. ("Persistent" means that the game world is constantly running, and players may log in and out as they please.) Unsatisfied with the product's merely moderate success, the companies radically revamped the game in an attempt to appeal to a younger, more trigger-happy audience.

Previously, the game was unabashedly complicated, appealing to mature, reflex-challenged gamers with its strategic combat style and deep skill system, which allowed players to carve out profitable, powerful niches as entertainers, architects and politicians. Now the game has become self-consciously simple, with a basic point-and-click combat system that is meant to evoke the frenetic firefights of the "Star Wars" films.

To Sony and LucasArts, the changes are a necessary step to help the game appeal to a broader audience. (The companies do not release subscriber figures, but many gaming experts believe that before the changes, Star Wars Galaxies had about 200,000 subscribers, each paying about $15 a month.) But to thousands of players, the shifts have meant the destruction of online communities that they might have spent hundreds or even thousands of hours constructing. Now many Galaxies players are canceling their accounts and migrating to other online games. They are swapping tales on "refugee" Web sites with names like Imperial Crackdown (imperialcrackdown.com). Ms. LaBeff, for instance, said that she had canceled all three of her Galaxies accounts and had joined a new guild in World of Warcraft, another game, with her old Star Wars friends.

"Someone might wonder, well, it's just a game, what's the big deal?" said Robert Kruck, 54, an engineer for Motorola who lives in Schaumburg, Ill., who said he had canceled seven of his eight Galaxies accounts. "But for many people it is much more than a game," he said. "It is a part of their lives where they have invested huge amounts of time building a community. And that community has been based on a sophisticated, mature game. So now, for them to take an adult-level combat and economics simulation and turn it into a mindless game for 10-year-olds is a violation of that community."

For Sony and LucasArts, the idea has been to make the game more "Star Wars-like," tying it more explicitly to the films.

"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base," said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts. "There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves."

Ms. MacIntyre said Galaxies had lost "significantly more" than the 3 to 5 percent of players who typically leave any online game every month. She said she expected the game to return to its previous subscriber levels in six months, a process she hoped would be accelerated by the introduction of a new television infomercial hawking Galaxies later this month.

"We knew we were taking a significant risk with our existing player base, but we felt so strongly that we needed to make these changes for the sake of the game's long-term future that we all held hands, LucasArts and Sony, and went forward," Ms. MacIntyre said.

It may, however, be a rocky path, because the revamped game is receiving mostly horrible reviews from players. On Gamespot.com, a leading game Web site, about half of the more than 600 players evaluating the game have rated it "abysmal." Some 14 percent have called it "terrible," and 6 percent have described it as merely "bad." The game is described as "perfect" by about 12 percent and "other" by 18 percent.

"We just feel violated," said Carolyn R. Hocke, 46, a marketing Web technician for Ministry Medical Group and St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point, Wis. Ms. Hocke said she once had as many as 10 separate Galaxies accounts but has canceled all but one in the last two weeks.

"For them to just come along and destroy our community has prompted a lot of death-in-the-family-type grieving," she said. "They went through the astonishment and denial, then they went to the anger part of it, and now they are going through the sad and helpless part of grieving. I work in the health-care industry, and it's very similar."

Now, then it looks like that Smedly his very hell bent on staying the game's exisiting course-looks like they would rather see the game stopped then attempt to save it or give into player pressure. There is a possible date of Feb 2006 when LA and SOE are going to meet and rather decide to keep this going or stop it totally.

It is about time SOE stop living there dream world and face up to reality. SWG should not be turned into something it isn't. It was find under the orginal system. But to make sudden changes without player support is plain insane. They can make all the changes they want, just dont except the general public to pay for crap.

As for the YAY sayers, the SOE defenders go a head and defend this crap-just realize that SWG days are now getting numbered.

Marketing smoke screen for an Alpha test

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you buy this game you may have some fun for whatever time you need to reach level 30 (of 90). Which will take anything from 2 days to 2 weeks. Levels 1-30 are the only thing SOE worked on (and there are still many bugged quests). Dont play Jedi - this former UBER class is a joke now, underpowered and underarmored.

The game was a giant beta test for the last 2.5 years, but still enjoyable because of the community. A great part of the community has cancelled because of this NGE/Starter Kit .. so prepare to see only a few people online. As lag is indirectly proportional to the people online, you will have some 13 frames per second on a high end machine (did I mention that it is now a FPS game .. so lag will and does kill you). This new game now is in Alpha testing, where players drop 15 bucks a month as volunteer Q&A team for SOE.

The free trial is a decent game, but has nothing to do with the real game (on purpose ... the developers want to make it look like a hot game, want to make you pay before you enter the game world .. want to have your money BEFORE you find out that the pile of bug reports is higher than your head). Listing all the bugs (some of them gamebreaking) would take about 2 hours (and NO, that is NOT exaggerating ... they fill some 30 pages as sticky posts on the various forums).

If you REALLY like this game, WAIT a few months until they have ironed out the WORST of the bugs (the rest wont be addressed for years, like in the last 2.5 years, but one can tolerate that). Dont waste your money as an alpha tester.

and yes ... if you DO play ... expect them to change the game unannounced at 6 months intervals .. which will take away many of the things you collected/accomplished over the last 6 months. Without compensation. Without asking you. Dont go for a multi-months subscriptions, you might regret it.

Willibald Stumptner
(Novarider on Naritus galaxy, still playing - until my sub renewal comes and I have to take a long, hard, honest look at the current mess)

Like getting ripped off?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you plan on purchasing a game, and every 6 months have the game completely overhauled on you so that it is broken for weeks on end and not playable, and bug ridden at all times in-between. Or if you like Interface changes and rules changes that completely undo any effort you put into a game over the course of time that you play then I STILL dont recommend you buy this game.

NGE is the path that leads to the sucky side

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 14
Date: December 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I thought with the introduction of the Combat Upgrade (CU) SWG was bad but this New Game Enhancements (NGE)has totally blown the game to shreds it is only a semblance of the former shell that WAS the great game SWG. This game is not worth it and will probalby close down within a year. STAY AWAY

Not worth the time or money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: November 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game use to be playeable but with the recent New Game Enhancements it has gone from entertaining to completely unplayable. The level of customer support from Sony Online and Lucas arts is abysmal. It is obvious from the way they have and are treating their customers that they DO NOT CARE how the game is recieved or anything whatsoever about the customers. DO NOT BUY this game as it is a waste of both your time and money. Play either World of Warcraft online or Dark and Light or Guild Wars or anything else you could get your hands on before playing this. At this point I would say that even freecell would be much more entertaining than this piece of junk.

Buyers Beware!!! Game will change to something different.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: November 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Hello Customers,
I have played Star Wars Galaxies for two years and I feel I must warn you about this product. This game has alot of things which could make it great but Sony Online Entertainment
continues to change the style of play used in the game. In May of 2005 SOE changed the combat style for the game which was accepted after some grumbles by the player base. Now SOE has changed the entire game into something very close to a first person shooter. SOE has dropped professions from 32 possible to 9 iconic professions, in some cases completely removing players entire professions. My main reason for warning you the customer is because of SOE's customer service and support. If you do buy this game please only pay in monthly increments so that when you get tired of the bugs and lag and poor treatment from SOE you can cancel your account and not pay extra like myself and some other players who payed for 6 months to a year but can get no refunds even though we have cancelled our accounts.

Thank You.

Not fun anymore.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: November 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've played this game since August 2003 and it was a great game. However this New Game Experience (NGE) has really ruined it. It is nothing more than a poorly written FPS game now.

Not to mention that SOE continues to be dishonest to its existing customer base.

The server populations have gone from HEAVY to LIGHT on every server except 3. Don't expect this game to last much longer.

As far as the negative comments being a small minority of the customer base, I encourage you to read the SWG forums and see.

Could I be THAT stupid?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: November 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ugh, this game is nothing compared to battlefront, or knights of the old republic, oreven Battle for naboo, a N64 title. I was trying to keep on buying these games, but this dissapoints me. BUY SOMETHING ELSE

Simply...horrible.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the biggest failure I have ever seen. It had so much potential and was completely ruined. It's not even playable.

The servers are all ghost-towns.
The game is full of bugs everywhere you go.
Half the stuff that they advertise is broken or "inaccessible to due balance issues"
They treat their customer base like crap.

One word describes this game...unplayable.

Star Wars Galaxies The complete Mess 1 year later

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: May 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It doesnt matter if your old school or new school, After 1 year later, Galaxies is still a complete mess. Thats my most people are still doing World of Warcraft. If you are the type who love to mash buttons, then galaxies is your game, If you dont mind where a game gets the nerfed treatment, then this is your game. If this is so good, then somebody please explain to me why that warcraft has around 5 million users where galaxies as what 250,000 maybe?

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